Comments on: It is better to be silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

It is better to be silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

Muddler — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:35:44 -0800

BoingBoing launched its redesign today and, among other changes, allows comments again. So, if you're tired of anagram maps, steampunk crap, self-promotion, endless and often pointless crying about copyright laws, orgasms about everything Katamari Demacy, or anything else, now is your chance. The folks behind the now abandoned corysucks and the still running xenisucks must be happy.

By: tommasz

tommasz — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:39:15 -0800

DO NOT WANT!

By: quonsar

quonsar — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:40:00 -0800

OH, FARK BOINKBOINK.

By: tristeza

tristeza — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:40:45 -0800

Oh dear LORD if I never have to read about fucking "steampunk" again it'll be too soon.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:42:51 -0800

First link goes to a domain parking page. Now there's a redesign I can deal with!

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:43:18 -0800

Updated that first link. Whether this actually improves anyone's reading experience is a different question entirely.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:43:30 -0800

ZING!

By: chunking express

chunking express — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:43:36 -0800

Well it's certainly less ugly than it used to be. It's nice they have fewer adverts, though in Firefox I don't see any of them. Though, as far as I can tell, its still an annoying site.

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:44:05 -0800

Teresa Nielsen Hayden of Making Light is moderating the Boing Boing comments now! She's one of the best moderators in the web universe. This is very, very good news indeed, if keeping the stupid out is one of the things you like in the world.

By: These Premises Are Alarmed

These Premises Are Alarmed — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:44:30 -0800

I think it's great they got Teresa Nielsen Hayden to moderate the comments. And for some reason the fact that the top post is "The Burning Man sculpture was set on fire early Tuesday morning, either by arson or accident. I've been tracking the story as it develops." just makes me giggle.

By: mecran01

mecran01 — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:46:41 -0800

I was disappointed that their hacker ethos didn't extend to allowing user participation and feedback. Granted, the feedback was becoming clogged with bitter trolls and "Boing has sold out!" style posts. Now let's start speculating about how much money that site pulls in a month.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:46:53 -0800

I've always wanted Shenny Jar'dan as a sockpuppet.

By: JDHarper

JDHarper — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:47:18 -0800

Why all the BoingBoing hate? There's a lot of interesting content in there. If you don't want to read about steampunk, just skip to the next article.

By: Muddler

Muddler — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:47:27 -0800

Cortex - you are truly all powerful. Not to mention you have a better website, never used the lame excuse of "we can't handle the comments", and were smart enough to take .com, .org, and .net. I'm buying you an open source, anagram, steampunk watch with Disney characters on it as a reward.

By: DU

DU — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:48:04 -0800

Wow, speaking of posters with agendas to grind. I don't read BoingBoing, but I think steampunk is kinda cool. If you are tired of those things, have you considered closing your browser?

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:49:28 -0800

ZING! If you could get Matt to turn the img tag back on for a few seconds, you could turn that Zing into SomethingAwful's "ICE BURN" image. Also, this thread took about two minutes longer to start to fill with BoingBoing/Cory/Xeni/Everything hate than I expected. I expected it to take less than 60 seconds. Metafilter is slow, and lethargic today, I guess?

By: Plutor

Plutor — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:49:31 -0800

MetaFilter: The ~~Plastic~~ BoingBoing it's okay to like

By: DU

DU — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:49:44 -0800

That is, I think working steampunk (i.e. an actual working mechanical object that does something electronics usually do, sort of thing) is cool. The steampunk "aesthetic" of just throwing some black spraypaint on a toothbrush and writing "1871" on it, not so much.

By: Mikey-San

Mikey-San — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:49:58 -0800

Holy fuck, I can read Boing Boing again without having to wade through Cory's shit? (I mean, it's a directory of wonderful things, yet all you ever hear on Cory days is "such-and-such DRM is going to eat your babies and consume your sould".) A glorious day, indeed. Dance, everybody, dance!

By: Mikey-San

Mikey-San — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:50:58 -0800

If you could get Matt to turn the img tag back on for a few seconds, you could turn that Zing into SomethingAwful's "ICE BURN" image. The return of the img tag would also be a day of wonder. I maintain hope that it will happen someday.

By: k8t

k8t — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:54:38 -0800

Digg had a redesign today too.

By: Mikey-San

Mikey-San — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:56:25 -0800

Digg had a redesign today too. <zen>When an aggregator has an announcement, to where does it turn?</zen>

By: Aloysius Bear

Aloysius Bear — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:57:21 -0800

Heh, the first post to the new Boing Boing was posted on Metachat months ago.

By: mecran01

mecran01 — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:57:41 -0800

Interesting discussion of BoingBoing's possible revenue here: ok, let's stop the bubble machine right now.

By: HuronBob

HuronBob — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:58:21 -0800

I'm with the "if you don't like it, close the window and move on" crowd.. There's good stuff on the boing, there's bad stuff on the boing... gosh, just like MeFi..... Do we really need to discuss it?

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:00:30 -0800

I was hoping that BoingBoing's comments would reach Digg-levels of hilarious awfulness (but not YouTube's level. The Internet only needs one place with comments that bad). But then they had to go and get a cool moderator, crushing my dream when it was barely out of the womb. Yes, it's true. BoingBoing, and the people who run it, are baby dream killers.

By: wintersweet

wintersweet — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:01:24 -0800

You know, I like BoingBoing a lot of the time, but it'll be good to be able to comment directly when they fall for and post hoaxes (I think they posted the zombie infection thing last year, and later deleted it with no comment!). Not to mention that if they get on the anagram map thing again (oy!), I'll just link to Miss Kitty's HOWTO over and over until they get the point.

By: stupidsexyFlanders

stupidsexyFlanders — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:01:51 -0800

There's good stuff on the boing, there's bad stuff on the boing yeah, but which boing is which? That's where I always get hung up.

By: Skorgu

Skorgu — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:02:44 -0800

Surely I can't be the only one who reads Boing Boing exclusively through RSS and hasn't seen the site itself in the better part of a year?

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:04:28 -0800

Naaaa---- na na na na na na na na KATAMARI DAMACY!!!!!!!

By: TechnoLustLuddite

TechnoLustLuddite — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:04:39 -0800

Damnit, i'm so tired of the internet! How come every time i open my browser, it's internet this or internet that? C'mon, people, think of something else to blog about besides the internet! Gawd!

By: tristeza

tristeza — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:05:00 -0800

Hey, settle down, nerds, I love BoingBoing - I just think they beat the term steampunk into the ground. Lighten up, Francises.

By: fleetmouse

fleetmouse — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:06:12 -0800

Oh great, now I can offer feedback on those dalek costumes made of crocheted lego bricks. snarking and moving on

By: Happy Dave

Happy Dave — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:07:08 -0800

I like that the first five posts on the 'New BoingBoing' post are anonymous.

By: mkb

mkb — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:07:26 -0800

(but not YouTube's level. The Internet only needs one place with comments that bad). You've seen IMDb's comment boards, right?

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:07:48 -0800

Naaaa---- na na na na na na na na I realized recently that the first bit of Sasasan Katamari is a great way to kick off a DJ set.

By: TungstenChef

TungstenChef — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:10:50 -0800

Sweet, I can finally start reading it again without having to wade through Cory's creepy-ass Disney fetish.

By: damn dirty ape

damn dirty ape — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:13:09 -0800

Granted, the feedback was becoming clogged with bitter trolls and "Boing has sold out!" style posts. Not really. I remember their old off-site comments. For the most part it was okay, as long as you remember BB is a lowest common denominator pop-web site. If the comments are of the youtube.com quality its because their audience is of the youtime.com quality. No need to blame it all on trolls. I also dont call anyone with diagrees with the BB/Cory consensus a troll.

By: cavalier

cavalier — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:14:10 -0800

Well said wintersweet. BoingBoing has a lot of fun submissions, and it is absolutely fantastic they brought a comment system back. Comments are needed when they often seem to take a submission without vetting it, or Cory tirades against something that doesn't actually exist. I'll be interested to see how well the comments pan out. It's a bit of a narcissistic blog, to be sure, but isn't that what blogs are? 'HAY I TINK THIS INTERSESTS!1!11'. The thing with BB is that there are, well, four or five narcissists... so that's a lot of ego! Movable Type, tho? Huh. That's a lotta serif.

By: cavalier

cavalier — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:15:05 -0800

Oh, and I seemed to remember the comments going away because of people pissing Cory off, and then he bit them, and that brought out kids to bite Cory just to see him get angrier, rinse repeat.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:19:50 -0800

Oh yay! Another gadget blog! Because I have nowhere on the web to turn to when I want to read about gadgets!

By: homodigitalis

homodigitalis — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:23:01 -0800

This redesign is soooo lame it's unbelievable. Looks like a Blogger template from 2001 ... still like to mastrubate to Xeni profile ...

By: EatTheWeak

EatTheWeak — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:23:12 -0800

What, BoingBoing's lame? I thought it was okay to like it! I really wish the web taste-makers would issue press releases or something so folks wouldn't get caught with embarrassing preferences so often. BoingBoing is a fine site. The posts have about the same cool/crap ratio as MeFi, really. Why all the hostility? I've always been tickled by venom exchanged between boards, like Mefi, Fark and BoingBoing are all gonna have a rumble or something, West Side Story style. Yeah, Doctorow harps hard on DRM. And why shouldn't he? DRM is never in the consumer's interest. If anything, we need more folks ringing the alarm bell about it.

By: Artw

Artw — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:24:38 -0800

Niow Boing Boing has comments can we be snarky to people scraping stuff off Boing Boing again?

By: Bovine Love

Bovine Love — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:26:05 -0800

Sheesh, I kinda like steam punk. Actually, I like it a lot. Too bad I can't afford it. It is better to read via RSS though. As are most sites.

By: keep_evolving

keep_evolving — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:27:13 -0800

Now let's start speculating about how much money that site pulls in a month. Easy enough...

By: wfc123

wfc123 — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:28:36 -0800

What makes this blog any better or different from the others I've seen? Do they have PR people?

By: DU

DU — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:29:45 -0800

Also, what in the hell is an anagram map?

By: chunking express

chunking express — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:29:50 -0800

BoingBoing always struck me as the Bono of web sites.

By: vagabond

vagabond — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:30:34 -0800

I just want to know why they need a weekly review of their site on their site. Are most of their readers incapable of using their mouse to access that scroll bar on the right?

By: PontifexPrimus

PontifexPrimus — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:30:46 -0800

I have to chime in on the "like it, but could live without it" side of things; some articles are nice, others I skip if they don't interest me.
Oh, and maybe it's the programmer in me, but is anyone else bothered by the giant opening quotation marks that aren't correctly closed? It's the visual equivalent of an mosquito bite right between the shoulder blades, where you can't scratch it...

By: DU

DU — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:33:13 -0800

in re: anagram maps. So....they just move the letters around? That's pretty seriously lame.

By: cavalier

cavalier — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:36:29 -0800

"Easy enough...." I still stand by my last comment on that Business Week fiction. wfc123, it has something to do with critical mass, I think. BoingBoing got very popular early on, with the idea of "user submitted content", so they had a lot more content, which led to more users, which led to more content, thus, the juggernaut that it appears to be now.

By: homodigitalis

homodigitalis — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:36:43 -0800

"BoingBoing is a fine site. The posts have about the same cool/crap ratio as MeFi, really. Why all the hostility?" In some way BB likes to present itself as the posterchild of the 'we da people of the intranets', especially with all that preaching about DRM, web democracy, smart mobs etc. ... But it's an elitist blog without any open doors for the readers - until recently. I think most her despise the old closed doors habit of BB. IMHO MeFi and Plastic were the first and best group blogs - open to anyone - with GOOD content and high self-regulating standards. That's why I keep coming back.

By: edgeways

edgeways — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:37:02 -0800

pfft the whole fucking web is all about narcissistic individuals, including here. The only two reasons to communicate is to pass along information, and to call attention to ones self, blogs are 95% ego stroking, which is not in of itself bad, but it is pointless to whine about someones silly conceptions of what they like to natter on about, especially if you pay attention to it enough that you know all about it. BB is sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes indifferent if you really don't like it to the point you have to make a website about it you have too much time and money and should be forced to dig ditches or fill sandbags for a month or two, eating nothing but beans and raman.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:45:23 -0800

To correct this, we hired a terrific community manager to oversee the conversations: Teresa Nielsen Hayden. At her own blog, Making Light, Teresa has proven herself to be a wonderfully wise and talented tender of online conversations. Was she the one who 'disemvowels' anyone she disagrees with?

By: smackfu

smackfu — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:46:36 -0800

The posts have about the same cool/crap ratio as MeFi, really. We let anyone post if they pay $5. What's Boingboings excuse?

By: avriette

avriette — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:04:12 -0800

You know, I've appreciated the man since Eastern Standard Tribe, and never actually been to the boingboing site. I find it hard to believe people can be so uppity about a site that merely aggregates content from elsewhere. Why not judge the man on something meaningful instead?

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:10:05 -0800

delmoi: yes. Damn, I'd love to see what MeFi would be like done by her, especially Ask.

By: Mach5

Mach5 — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:12:50 -0800

That's Katamari DAMACY you heathen fucknut. DON'T EVER MAKE THAT MISTAKE AGAIN OR I WILL ROLL YOU UP WITH NOTHING BUT CACTI AND PAPERCLIPS.

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:14:30 -0800

Christ, this redesign does that incredibly irritating thing of shoving the content out the left edge of the window unless you make the browser as wide as the designer desires. I have a portrait screen! Fuck off, CSS dicks.

By: SweetJesus

SweetJesus — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:17:10 -0800

Why not judge the man on something meaningful instead? Like the attitude he cops towards anyone who disagrees with him?

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:20:03 -0800

It looks like Boing Boing has been bought out by Gawker Media. Also, I second cgc373's statement about Hayden moderating. That is really awesome.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:20:16 -0800

they over zealously moderated my comment.

By: grubi

grubi — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:23:03 -0800

By: Artw

Artw — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:27:31 -0800

Sheesh, I kinda like steam punk. Actually, I like it a lot. Too bad I can't afford it. I am not completely sure it means what you think it does. BoingBoing is most likely responsible for this.

By: gompa

gompa — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:29:05 -0800

DRM sucks, we all agree. But Cory's got a hard-on against (is that possible?) Apple's DRM, which is easily the softest of the DRMs out there. He's a little stupid on teh subject, to be honest. Yeah, and the Disney thing? Let it go, dude. You're a grown-up now. Actually, the part I don't get is how you could be simultaneously so virulently against DRM and so fawningly for the corporation that's done more to absurdly overextend offline copyright than any other entity on the planet, and yet somehow not have your head explode.

By: Scoo

Scoo — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:31:42 -0800

But Frauenfelder is teh awesome. I still have several copies of the print zine. Go team BB!

By: lumpenprole

lumpenprole — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:32:29 -0800

Like the attitude he cops towards anyone who disagrees with him? Unlike you, of course. I like boingboing. So fucking sue me. I like steampunk. I like the Laugh Out Loud Cats. I like Jardin's reporting on tech in third world countries. And I like Doctrow's fiction and his stances on DRM. If you don't, that's fine. But don't try to out-cool everybody else with your "I'm so over it" stance. You sound like the internet blog equivalent of a hipster hating all the bands that 'sold out' last month. And you're on METAFILTER! You're posting your hate for a hipper-than-thou aggregator on a site that touts itself as "the best of the web"! Please.

By: grubi

grubi — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:32:54 -0800

gompa calls it perfectly.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:33:10 -0800

Actually, the part I don't get is how you could be simultaneously so virulently against DRM and so fawningly for the corporation that's done more to absurdly overextend offline copyright than any other entity on the planet, and yet somehow not have your head explode. You're not noticing the whole reappropriation, subversion and general open-source treatment of Disney as cultural mythos, then?

By: destro

destro — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:34:54 -0800

So many haters are clockin our figures, So many haters don't like us rakeing papers, All we did was bring garage through, From the underground street to you

By: EatTheWeak

EatTheWeak — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:38:25 -0800

Here's something I'm curious about - surely Disney has flirted with DRM, right? I mean, these are the evil fucks who devised the Disney Vault - I'd be surprised to hear they weren't developing some sort of digital nastiness to keep Cinderella out of my DVD burner. And sure enough, dropping "Disney DRM" into Google brings up a whole host of articles. Has Doctorow ever taken his favorite mouse to task about this?

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:45:39 -0800

BoingBoing is a fine site. The posts have about the same cool/crap ratio as MeFi, really. Why all the hostility? Boing Boing is what thirty-somethings think the "kids these days" think is cool. It is lowest common denominator programming for a smarter-than-the-average-American-drone demographic. Boing boing is not new media, it's the old media model distributed on new media. Boing boing is still written by employees of boing boing who have a vested financial interest in its popularity, hence they write (or program, whatever term you want) the site to appeal to the majority of internet users. It is really no different than an online magazine. The myth is that it's a tech blog, it isn't. Why would there be posts about steampunk, and subway maps, and tattoos if it was? Boing boing is written to appeal to as many online blog readers as possible and convincing their readers that they are part of the "digital counterculture" - that they are smart and clever iconoclasts. Boing boing claims to have user participation. That's a lie. Before today, you submitted stories and they blogged about them under their own by line. Great. How is that participatory? After today, you can comment, but is there really any dialogue? By contrast Metafilter is user-created. There is no monolithic Metafilter identity. There are users with strong identities, passions, and agendas but the site has no official position or take on anything. Here's the analogy: Boing boing is a person, Metafilter is a place. Boing boing can be abstracted to a very vocal and opinionated person. Metafilter is a place where vocal opinionated people congregate to share ideas, joke, argue and learn new things. Boing boing is a pundit on TV. Metafilter is a salon. To say the quality of posts on Metafilter is the same as Boing Boing is preposterous. Look at yesterday's posts here and there. Here, very relevant important national and internationals news (Obama on homosexuality, gonzales resigning, etc). An exposition on an influential post-war French philosopher, and another on an internationally acclaimed Latin American novelist. A number of art posts, internet current events, and a collection of posts excerpting stories of varied interest from the dead tree press. And for each of these, there is a discussion of the same by people with an informed interest in the subject matter. There? Disney, tattoos, lol-he-said-orgasm, lol-dumb-blonde, PR for a lego toy (saw it on engadget too), and a post about a magazine article on mefite kowalski (good article btw). None of it illuminates the world or our place in it, you learn nothing, your point of view is not challenged, etc. It's like watching TV, or as I said before, reading a magazine. Those posts are not bad in and of themselves. They are light and fun, like candy. But you're not better off for having read them. Some of the posts on metafilter will open up a whole new world to you, others will make you smirk, etc. On metafilter, you could conceivably get a post about the tattoo band-aid, but are you worse off if you don't? On Boing boing, you will never get that Barthes post. They can keep up their traffic numbers with posts like that. But are you worse off if you had never heard about it? I think so. Metafilter and Boing Boing could not be more different.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:51:27 -0800

I should point out that I love kowalski's site. My criticism of their blog post about the article about him should not be viewed as criticism of him. I think his site is fascinating, his photography is amazing, and he seems like a genuinely unique and interesting person. Frankly, their post doesn't do vanishingpoint.ca justice. Also, I don't understand why their post focused on the article about him. Why that layer of abstraction? Why not just blog about his site directly?

By: jsavimbi

jsavimbi — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:51:29 -0800

I don't understand the hate against BoingBoing. They do share a lot of content and similar viewpoints with MeFi and the contributors actually get out of the basement and make an effort to opine on things they've experienced. Like most people, they harp on about themes that are of interest to them, and yes since I read most sites through RSS, I skip over the nouveau-hipster cultural reporting, like steampunk. On another note, I didn't read BB much at all unless they were linked, much less have them in my opml list until I heard Cory speak at MIT last year. He was engaging, spoke intelligently and seemed to personify the content I like to read when I'm pretending to work. Like I'm doing now. Go Sox.

By: bru

bru — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:55:32 -0800

Boing Boing is part of my twice daily news diet, I love it, and Teresa Nielsen Hayden is great. But how can they call that a "community" without personal profiles? It seems to me that what we call now an "online community" has evolved from "a group of readers" to "a group of contributors", with specifically "memorized contributions". It becomes a community only when we can have an idea of what each member has added to the community over time. Otherwise, it's just a broadcasting blog with comments allowed and moderated. There is nothing wrong with that. But it is a way to add buzz and content, not to create a community.

By: EatTheWeak

EatTheWeak — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:56:24 -0800

Pastabagel - fair enough. Clearly I worded my initial post sloppily - I was basing it on my own experience as a user of the two boards. When scrolling through a fresh batch of BoingBoing or Mefi, I find myself experiencing the about the same rate of 50% interest in the offered links. Perhaps that says more about me as a reader than it does about any of the boards concerned, but there you have it - both sites offer a big list of link, I wind up clicking on about half of them. That said, I have Metafilter's icon lodged right under my browser's address bar, and check in daily. I remember to check BoingBoing about twice a month, when MeFi's run out of interesting content for the moment.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:57:50 -0800

There's an amazing amount of snark here, even by Metafilter standards. Homodigitalis is the only person here who's really explained, convincingly, any reason the hate could be justified. Most of those things people are complaining about are things I've indeed liked at some point. , and I don't claim to be hip, or pseudo-hip, or even ironic-hip that I liked the subway anagram maps, the LOLcats (either pictures or comic strip), stuff about Coop or (especially) Katamari Damacy. Why doesn't Doctorow take Disney to task over DRM? I'm pretty sure he does. I'm also pretty sure that Disney hires both cool people and evil ones, and it's possible to like the good and hate the bad. It's a corporation, not an evil god.

By: Bovine Love

Bovine Love — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:59:04 -0800

me: Sheesh, I kinda like steam punk. Actually, I like it a lot. Too bad I can't afford it. Artw I am not completely sure it means what you think it does. Ok, just to be clear, I like steampunk style. I'll admit to being quite enamored with it, probably some hangover from my cyberpunk addiction which is so very rarely satiated now-a-days. It invokes the kind of think I loved about Snow Crash. I will admit to being introduced to it via BB. As an aside, I don't think BB is good enough for all this level of fuss. I'd be genuinely interested in more information outside of my bit of googling, wiki'ing and skimming BB. Got something good for me?

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:00:53 -0800

allows comments again. Awfully big of them. Snark aside, I predict this redesign will completely revolutionize how I don't read the site. Too much focus on the personalities behind it, too much hype and faddism - basically, too much of the attitudes and content that turns me off of most blogs.

By: lumpenprole

lumpenprole — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:02:01 -0800

Metafilter and Boing Boing could not be more different I certainly see what you're saying, and I pretty much agree. But you can't deny there is a certain hipper-than-thou flavor that metafilter at it's worst indulges in. And to turn around and say "I don't like what they post on their aggregator! They suck!" feels like sour grapes. I love Metafilter. I love boingboing. I have a toolbar folder in firefox that contains both and everyday I right click it to bring them up in tabs. I can totally understand it what boingboing does doesn't float your boat. But the bile seems totally undeserved. I wouldn't be surprised if the op is one of the people behind the xenisucks site which I find misogynistic in the worst tradition of the internet. Truly, the worst of the web.

By: Kickstart70

Kickstart70 — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:02:22 -0800

Barely different, same people, same site. "Woohoo, it's still white but now they have thin lines at the navigation!" W. T. F. I read BB. I skip over Cory's bitchmoaning about DRM and Disney and the new color-coded cables he bought for his new gadget. I skip over Xeni's incessant self-promotion and narcissism. I still find a few things interesting but...a big hearty 'meh' to the redesign and the so-called importance of the site.

By: Scoo

Scoo — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:03:51 -0800

Before today, you submitted stories and they blogged about them under their own by line. Great. How is that participatory? BZZZZT! Sorry! I've had a couple posts on BB. They always credited me with a Thanks Scoo! There? Disney, tattoos, lol-he-said-orgasm, lol-dumb-blonde, PR for a lego toy (saw it on engadget too), and a post about a magazine article on mefite kowalski (good article btw). None of it illuminates the world or our place in it, you learn nothing, your point of view is not challenged, etc. It's like watching TV, or as I said before, reading a magazine. I've found TONS of great art, tech, DIY projects and goofiness on BB I wouldn't have found elsewhere. I can't help but feel you're talking about a completely different website than the one I read. The thing I've always liked about BB is the non-snooty, everyone is welcome vibe. As for the boldface: sheesh, you're a crabby guy/gal! Can I buy you a drink?

By: flashboy

flashboy — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:07:51 -0800

The hatred people direct at those who are different to them doesn't even begin to compare to the hate people reserve for those who are extremely similar to them.

By: lumpenprole

lumpenprole — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:08:29 -0800

The hatred people direct at those who are different to them doesn't even begin to compare to the hate people reserve for those who are extremely similar to them. Unbelievably awesome.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:11:24 -0800

There's an amazing amount of snark here, even by Metafilter standards. Aw, giving BoingBoing and Cory crap is a damned tradition around here. Call it professional discourtesy.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:17:19 -0800

We love kottke too.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:19:22 -0800

In both holes, yes.

By: togdon

togdon — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:19:57 -0800

Hopefully this is the last Boing Boing post we ever have to see on MeFi, since people who enjoy Boing Boing can now go talk about it over there.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:23:37 -0800

The thing I've always liked about BB is the non-snooty, everyone is welcome vibe. Yes, they credit you. Doesn't every blogger do that with a little "via" at the end oft he post? But everyone isn't welcome. You're welcome to read, and after a couple of years you are now welcome to comment. So? How is that different than any other blog? You got two submissions, through. Great. So why don't they let you make original posts? And as for buying me a drink - yes! But you can't deny there is a certain hipper-than-thou flavor that metafilter at it's worst indulges in. This is a fair point.

By: matteo

matteo — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:32:13 -0800

ZING! I'm not sure that YouTube link aggregator is really that much more interesting than BoingBoing, frankly

By: stupidsexyFlanders

stupidsexyFlanders — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:35:54 -0800

Looking at the tags for this post, it looks like you think every salient characteristic of BoingBoing sucks. Why do you even care, then? It's like me sitting in my house and complaining about the railroad train collectors meeting in the church basement down the street. Trains suck! Little trees are stupid! Gluing down fake grass is for morons! I get around all this pretty neatly by...staying away.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:44:01 -0800

Mikey-San: Holy fuck, I can read Boing Boing again without having to wade through Cory's shit? Huh? Please explain. Won't we still have to wade through his shit? I have a love-hate relationship with Doctorow: love his books, hate his blogging. This nailed it. ("Google maps 37Signals with Flickr iPod." "What?") digitalis: Looks like a Blogger template from 2001 ... Nailed it. still like to mastrubate to Xeni profile ... *cough cough cough adamsapple cough cough*

By: solipsophistocracy

solipsophistocracy — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:45:16 -0800

Brains, man, brains. BoingBoing consistently has cool neuroscience posts. Almost one every day. That alone makes it worth reading in my book.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:46:51 -0800

Why do you even care, then? It's like me sitting in my house and complaining about the railroad train collectors meeting in the church basement down the street. Trains suck! Little trees are stupid! Gluing down fake grass is for morons! I get around all this pretty neatly by...staying away. posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 12:35 PM on August 28 [+] [! I think for most people the analogy isn't complete unless you also have people wandering by your house all the time going "Hey, did you know there's a railroad train collectors meeting down the street! Its the coolest thing! Never seen anything like it! And, my god, the little trees are just the best thing ever!" Its natural that the first few times you'd be polite and just say "Oh thats great but thats not for me." but eventually you'd start fantasizing about torching the place.

By: Mister Cheese

Mister Cheese — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:52:17 -0800

I've seen cool stuff on BoingBoing that I wanted to see discussed at Metafilter levels of insight/intelligence/humor. Hopefully there'll be some reasonably good discussion in the comments. Until that moment, however: *flashes an M with fingers on left hand* Metafilter is my homepage. SUXS MY LOLCOCK, BoingBoing.

By: aramaic

aramaic — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:53:55 -0800

flashboy for President! (note: I fully intend to violently overthrow said Presidency and murder all who oppose me. Nothing personal, however.)

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:55:08 -0800

I'd be genuinely interested in more information outside of my bit of googling, wiki'ing and skimming BB. Got something good for me? "Steampunk" as a concept seems to be mostly based on aesthetics, but there are a few people who are actually building steam powered things: the Neverwas Haul comes to mind.

By: SweetJesus

SweetJesus — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:56:20 -0800

Unlike you, of course. No, just like me. I make up childish, derogatory nicknames for anyone with whom I have a disagrement of opinion. I'm also prone to talking shit, having that shit corrected by people who know better, and then acting as if I was still right in the first place, you UNDERWEAR PERVERT!!! You sound like the internet blog equivalent of a hipster hating all the bands that 'sold out' last month And you sound like you're dating Cory Doctorow. I mean, why so quick to defend him for his personality flaws? I could care less about his writing, I just wish he'd stop talking about technical issues about which he is by no means an expert.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:58:11 -0800

I don't read BoingBoing. Maybe I should. Meh. But I wonder if they spend as much time snarking about MetaFilter as MetaFilter does snarking about BoingBoing. you know, if you misspell "snarking" and then read it aloud, it sounds like "snack ring".

By: geoff.

geoff. — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:59:54 -0800

The people I know who read Boing Boing are educated, above average intelligence, probably went to a upper-tier private college, have a dog named after an something drinking related (Guinness, Cosmo), consider themselves in touch and takes the el to work every morning. They even have a copy of the Cormac McCarthy book for the ride, as they are bundled up in their Ralph Lauren Purple Label peacoat. This is the weekend their girlfriend (Lindsay) is in town, so they may venture meet up with her friends after they pre-drink. Her friends of course are going to go to the edge of Wicker Park, definitely nothing in which the waitress has more than one tattos. While their girlfriend is out pre-drinking with her friends the guys are all waiting at said friend's apartment for Brett to arrive (he's always late, he works for one of the top accounting firms in town, everyone else said friend knows works in consulting or possibly in architecture). They're all drinking Coors Light, or MGD, checking BoingBoing on the laptop as SportsCenter runs on the television. The conversation revolves around previous bars they went to, dinners they attended or mid-afternoon charity events. They dare not actually venture outside of Wrigleyville or Wicker Park, so they hit the bar as far as they can walk to and bar hop back to their apartment, with their girlfriends in toe. That's probably the average BoingBoing demographic. Metafilter's demographic is evenly divided between those who spend their afternoons at an Infoshop and those who have children under five.

By: lumpenprole

lumpenprole — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:00:23 -0800

Yeah, I'm dating him. We're married. We had a steampunk wedding. And you effectively obviated any need for me to treat you like I need to respond to you intelligently by acting like a five year old. Moron.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:00:34 -0800

And for some reason the fact that the top post is "The Burning Man sculpture was set on fire early Tuesday morning, either by arson or accident. I've been tracking the story as it develops." just makes me giggle. I found it quite amusing as well, and just now discovered I actually know (in a very distant, friend of friends, camped together once kind of way) the person who did it.

By: homodigitalis

homodigitalis — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:00:36 -0800

*cough cough cough adamsapple cough cough* I am an equal opportunity mastrubator.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:04:44 -0800

Felony arson charges for burning the Burning Man. So much for that counter-culture.

By: lumpenprole

lumpenprole — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:05:39 -0800

That's probably the average BoingBoing demographic Well, again, speaking as someone who reads both, I fit neither of those profiles by a long shot. But thanks for playing, and make sure to pick up a copy of the home game on your way out.

By: SweetJesus

SweetJesus — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:06:48 -0800

Yeah, I'm dating him. We're married. We had a steampunk wedding. I bet you're going to have like a million of his babies...

By: Mikey-San

Mikey-San — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:10:24 -0800

Huh? Please explain. Won't we still have to wade through his shit? Whoa, I completely hallucinated that they were adding a "filter author" feature to the site, when I read the redesign post on BB. How did that happen? Time to lay off the drugs.

By: gompa

gompa — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:13:51 -0800

I'm also pretty sure that Disney hires both cool people and evil ones, and it's possible to like the good and hate the bad. It's a corporation, not an evil god. Well, Disney's the main reason why the estate of the corpse formerly known as Dr Seuss has billed me $250 for the use of 35 goddamn words in the epigraph of my new book, so I frankly don't care what kind of people occupy their cubicles nor how much pomo semiotic panache you bring to your "reappropriation" of their cultural artifacts. Disney's a copyright law firm with elaborate daycare facilities. It is the sworn enemy of creative enterprise everywhere. If you give half a shit about creative freedom - if, for example, you're a pomo semiotic-chop-suey sci-fi writer - then it is at the very least cognitively dissonant to be an unabashed supporter of Team Rodent. And it's worth noting that living, breathing, still-creating Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices, who also contributes a couple dozen words to the book's epigraph, charged me not one penny for my "reppropriation." [/rant]

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:22:59 -0800

I frankly don't care what kind of people occupy their cubicles nor how much pomo semiotic panache you bring to your "reappropriation" of their cultural artifacts. don't care at all? oh well, you suck.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:23:52 -0800

Disney's a copyright law firm with elaborate daycare facilities. Champion line.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:23:59 -0800

awww, borked my link. you suck like this.

By: cavalier

cavalier — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:30:40 -0800

Whoa, I completely hallucinated that they were adding a "filter author" feature to the site, when I read the redesign post on BB. How did that happen? Time to lay off the drugs. WISHFUL THINKING!! ME TOO!! I saw the seperate names in the header bar and I said HO SHIT!! Filtered boing boing!.. er.. but it was credits. There was that one dude or I think two dudes who scraped BoingBoing and allowed you to filter it on the fly. It was the bomb, then something happened and they found jesus or they saw a bandwidth bill and they said our bad, sorry BB. Sniff..

By: lumpenprole

lumpenprole — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:35:17 -0800

You'll be able to filter BB the day I get plonk on metafilter....

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:36:56 -0800

I bet you're going to have like a million of his babies... Man, you just had to go and make me imagine a BoingBoing-ized version of that stupid (read: awesome) Nutrigrain ad.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:41:10 -0800

Metafilter is a community blog, every post is put up by someone who is a member of the very large community (who may or may not have paid $5). Boingboing is more like a traditional newspaper, it takes in "tips (recommend a link)" and then writes it up Boingboing style. In all, only a small handful of people, control what ends up on the main page of the site.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:43:24 -0800

Hey look! UNICORNS!

By: Muddler

Muddler — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:50:14 -0800

The reason why allowing for comments is important is that it will hopefully remind the BoingBoing editors to post things that are new and interesting to the readers, not just to the editors. The editors, in particular Cory, have in recent years gone off on tangents that are quite obviously pet projects and interest that don't interest a lot (maybe most) people. One or two posts on a favorite hobby is one thing, endless anagram map posts is quite another. A lack of audience feedback is damaging to the website because readers cannot point out the degradation of the quality these posts represent. For example, do you think the readership is gaining from certain editors posting every week about their public appearances? Is it helpful to have Cory's multiple posts trying to fill the classes he is guest teaching? Of course not, it is nothing but shamelss self promotion. Comments pointing this out have a chance at calming the number of these posts to a reasonable level. Here's another example - an entire post in March of this year on an open air rotating pizza oven. Yes, the kind that have been sold in Walmarts for years was newly discovered and blogged about by none other than Cory. Can you imagine if a MeFi person posted this crap? In fact, one main reason I joined MeFi was that it offered what I used to get from BoingBoing - good, well informed posts on interesting subjects. Another reason for allowing comments is to provide a balanced opinion and to correct incorrect information. I have read dozens of posts from boingboing that just plain have the facts wrong - but there is no way to correct the problem. In fact, I'd say that MeFi comments are at least as interesting, if not more interesting and informative, than the main posts. BoingBoing stands to benefit from comments in the same way. Finally, I don't understand those that are on here commenting about how one should not care if there are comments because you can take or leave posts. This is the "love it or leave it" argument. If you really felt that way, why are commenting on MeFi? It would seem that you find value in comments, now wouldn't it. So, hats off to BoingBoing for adding back user input. It's about time.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:52:23 -0800

Having myself BEEN one of the many poorly-paid people occupying a Disney cubicle, I can tell you that the corporation itself and the employees in the cubicles are two different things, and that the employees are often victims just as much as the people subjected to lawsuits (I didn't find Disney more litigious than Mattel, by the way, they're both pretty bad). Alas, as the old saying goes, they call it Mauschwitz for a reason. (Or Duckau, whichever you prefer.) But I can also tell you that while Disney paid me pretty much nothing, the opportunities one is often qualified for AFTER putting Disney on a resume kinda makes up for it. And I will admit, sometimes I do really miss the creative people that litter the place, if not the paychecks & corporate servitude.

By: jonson

jonson — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:54:47 -0800

I can't be bothered to read all the comments here but we all agree that Cory Doctorow should be punched in the nuts, yes?

By: lumpenprole

lumpenprole — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:04:15 -0800

I can't be bothered to read all the comments here You first, bucko.

By: empath

empath — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:04:51 -0800

I used to love boing boing, and then eventually, every time I saw a good boing boing post, I would think, I wonder what they would say about this on metafilter, and then I would look over here and somebody over here would have already posted it. Eventually I realized that anything worth a damn that was posted on boing boing would be over here eventually, so I just stopped going over there. Even with the huge volume of fpps the signal to noise ratio here is a lot better.

By: nixerman

nixerman — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:11:24 -0800

Boing boing is a person, Metafilter is a place. A case could be made that Cory Doctrow has, almost single-handedly, destroyed any and all redemptive potential that the early web may have possessed. Somewhere along the line this sneaky evil genius transformed the web into television except instead of having "commercial breaks" content and advertising would merge into a single, never ending stream of meaningless crap. This sort of thing can't be entirely blamed on omnipresent consumerism since it always requires a certain kind of vapid personality that is just "human" enough to lure victims into capitalism's bottomless pit of novelty. As a kind of prototype for this web-enabled human impostor Cory et. al. have defined the form really.

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:22:39 -0800

My issues with them: * Meme of the Week * meta-plugging - here's an interview I did promoting my book, out this week! ... here's another interview I did, promoting my book, out this week! * They have journalism chops. I wish they'd factcheck before posting something inflammatory.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:34:25 -0800

Cory Doctorow single-handedly destroyed the web, huh? Oh, please.

By: slogger

slogger — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:36:44 -0800

jonson: yes. Xeni too.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:44:53 -0800

It's weird that that kind of thing has become some sort of institution.

By: eriko

eriko — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:45:59 -0800

The reason why allowing for comments is important is that it will hopefully remind the BoingBoing editors to post things that are new and interesting to the readers, not just to the editors. It's *their* blog, not yours. If you don't like reading about the meme of the week, Cory's classes, or Xeni Zen, then don't read the goddamn thing. They write what they want to write about. That's as it should be. If you think reading that is a waste of time, then stop wasting your time reading it. There clearly is a goodly number of people who are willing to read what they post, so, hey, whatever works for them. But this idea that they owe you and your mythical market a moment's notice is insane. Indeed, if they had less readership, it would be easier for them to run the weblog.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:49:18 -0800

Cory Doctorow single-handedly destroyed the web, huh? Oh, please. Yes. It was an epic battle. Just him and Al Gore, shirtless, each lunging at the other with a giant H.

By: Myeral

Myeral — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:49:46 -0800

Hey, Miss Lynnster. I thought us Cast Members were supposed to keep the magic magic? Till I managed to dig a tunnel out of the fairytale castle (also known as getting 'rationalised') I found Cory morbidly fascinating, almost like a steam engine buff or something, in his daily paeans to the House of Mouse. Now, I never go near BB, and instead spend my idle hours with the Link Bunnies.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:57:41 -0800

I notice they're Movable Type now. What were they before? Home brewed?

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:59:22 -0800

Hey look! UNICORNS! Oh, Miss Lynnster. Surely you could've done better than that.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:25:00 -0800

Ah yes. Once a Cast Member always a Cast Member. Likewise, once a Blues Sister, always a Blues Sister. I feel so deprived now when I work somewhere that doesn't have a precious team nickname for all employees... I desperately feel the need to collect more titles, like medals or Brownie badges. And sparkletone? That made me laugh. :)

By: Kickstart70

Kickstart70 — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:41:22 -0800

It's *their* blog... Except only in the greatest stretch possible can you call it a blog. They lost that after removing comments and putting ads all over the damned place, with a dedicated contracted staff to selling those ads (who I once contracted for a project and was shocked and how much they wanted).

By: mediareport

mediareport — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:45:08 -0800

Except only in the greatest stretch possible can you call it a blog. They lost that after removing comments Blogs need comments to be blogs? Fuck *that*. Anyway, the redesign looks much better.

By: mattholomew

mattholomew — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:37:36 -0800

I'm building a steampunk Disney-themed Katamari out of old clock parts with an abusive EULA that forces you to read through posts from my friend Violet Blue in order to get a rootkit installed on your machine. SEX! There, now you don't have to read BoingBoing for the rest of the year.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:40:41 -0800

OK, I am so less cool than all y'all who are soooo tired of steampunk stuff. Cuz I never saw steampunk stuff, at least under that name. I did see Brazil, however. Now, since I have managed to avoid steampunk and BoingBoing for lo these many years, that makes me automatically cooler than those of you who are cooler than me.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:47:38 -0800

The deej: even a stuck clock is right twice a day. but I wish I was cool too, I sometimes read bb on the toilet on my other bb (blackberry) so I have no claims on cool whatsoever

By: The Deej

The Deej — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:49:13 -0800

True Burhanistan, but don't forget, our sole purpose here is not to be cool, but to be annoying.

By: doublesix

doublesix — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:51:26 -0800

Wait! Now how am I supposed to add BoingBoing to siteshuffle, or +NewsAlloy, or join the EFF, or buy crap from the BB ~~dollar store~~ digital emporium, or visit BoingBoing mobile *powered by winksite*, or buy art by Mark Frauenwhatever? Me no like.

By: doublesix

doublesix — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:55:35 -0800

What is this BBgadgets? Has the whole fucking world gone gadget-mad?

By: damn dirty ape

damn dirty ape — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:00:55 -0800

Well, I know im harsh on BB because it was such a nice lightweight blog featuring all the alt-crap I grew up with. Over the past couple of years it became a soapbox for Cory's activism and a PR vehicle for Xeni's tech journalism career. The collection of alt-stuff has practically fallen into a parody (yes I loved the idea of steampunk way back when but beaten that dead horse 20 years later is pushing it). Now its a PR/Branding site for the ~~authors~~ web personalities and their projects and an interesting "link-lust" blog last. On the plus side, there are more blogs now and BB is rarely the best site to visit anymore. Its like the last few seasons of the Simpsons. We're a little bitter its fallen into such shoddy disrepair and think the authors have betrayed us. Reviving comments is like the new simpsons movie. Just way too little way too late.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 23:59:14 -0800

I've got nothing against BB or any of its contributors, but I don't read the site any more, so there's that, I guess.

By: Joeforking

Joeforking — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:56:57 -0800

I don't mind BB at all, but I hate Burning Man.

By: Sparx

Sparx — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:59:18 -0800

W E S N anagram map

By: cavalier

cavalier — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 06:53:48 -0800

I tried to google for Boing Boing, comments, and Cory, and I found one of the last comment boards they had -- I think -- before they took comments out. Cory seemed to get angrier each time someone called him out: Quicktopic link -- 04/03.

By: Kickstart70

Kickstart70 — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:29:35 -0800

Blogs need comments to be blogs? Fuck *that*. Ok, then you show me the difference between a blog and an "offbeat news site". As far as I can tell BB is very clearly the latter and is only called a blog these days because they claim to be one.

By: Artw

Artw — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:00:06 -0800

Yeah, it's just like some kid of LOG of what they are looking at on the WEB.

By: Fuka

Fuka — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:00:21 -0800

I skimmed boingboing earlier - and i've thought about this a bit. First - they don't claim to be a blog as far as I can tell. They just claim to be boingboing. Them not comforming to your labels is your fault and your problem. I call 'trash' on the original post. Whiny trash. Second - they're a business. They aren't even an evil business - so getting mad at them for doing the things that non-evil businesses do is infantile. Third - what they're selling - its ok. Cory is a fun, skilled writer and Mark's projects have a much higher ratio of non-suck to suck than most creators. Fourth - Cory's DRM rants are a good thing. There needs to be more outrage at corporate company store scams than there currently is. If he churns up the pond more and causes real change then he's someone making a positive impact. If you don't like it you should at least get out of the way - unless of course you're in the way on purpose (in which case, this again makes your original post trash, very suspect trash).